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Saturday, January 11, 2014

For
some time now I have wanted to write about some of the mentors I have
had in my life. There are many, of course. Too many to really do
justice to. I believe everyone we encounter has lessons to teach us
if we are receptive. But everyone, if they are really lucky, has a
list of people, or one specific person, who they know changed they
way they think about life and the way they live in the world. That
person who took a special interest in you and helped guide you to
your better nature.

I
have been very lucky.

I
started teaching my class on Comics and Pop Culture at Chatham
University again this week. It's been three years since the first
time I did this (you can read about that experience here). Being
officially in the position of teacher has made me think of my own
mentors again. I planned on beginning this blog post some time this
week anyway, but then one of those instances of synchronicity hit
that made me realize that now was the time to write very specifically
about a man named Will Hinerman.

I
first met Mr. Hinerman when I was twelve, Seventh Grade. My small,
rural school housed Seventh through Twelfth grades in a single
building, so that prepubescent kids could wander the same halls as
eighteen year old seniors with beards. Not a completely ideal
situation (since then the school has been expanded and now has a more
overt Middle School/High School division). Hinerman was the Middle
School Art teacher. He also taught World History and American History
at the high school level. I had always loved history and had devoured
the books in my grade school library. Thanks to my love of comics, I
also drew. In terms of my primary interests at the time, he was the
perfect match.

Now
before I get into a lot of the specifics of my relationship with him
I do want to address the fact that he was a controversial figure, and
while he was my favorite teacher, a lot of other students really
hated him. He could be very demanding. I've heard stories from
friends who attended Band Camp where he acted as a drill instructor
with, if the stories are to be believed, the same exacting standards
of a boot camp Marine sergeant.

I
saw some of that in him. I started drawing early in life and never
really quit. By the time I met him I was at the point of trying to
duplicate drawings from my favorite comics by looking at them. When I
first showed them to him he was immediately complimentary with what
he saw as some raw talent, and then immediately took me to task about
my lack of anatomy, perspective and proportion and assigned me the
task of drawing skeletons until I knew how the body fit together and
worked. He was supportive of my efforts, more than anyone else had
ever been, but he didn't let me get away with anything either.

I
had art class with him in Seventh and Eighth grades. For most people
in my school district that was the end of art classes. If you wanted
to continue to take Advanced Art, as it was called, you had to use a
study hall or any other free period you had. I spent pretty much
every free moment I had in high school living in the Art Room. Yes, I
studied art there, and did a whole lot of other art related
activities, but it was so much more than that. It was my haven, the
place that made my high school years endurable. High school wasn't
Hell for me the way it is for some people. I was popular enough
without ever being Big Man On Campus, and had enough friends that I
was able to escape the geeky loner status that befalls so many other
creative types (or comics fans). I was bright enough that the
schoolwork was never that big a deal (in fact I now realize how not
challenged I really was). So the Art Room was an escape, a refuge
from days that could otherwise have been tedious.

In
Tenth and Eleventh grades he taught American History and World
History. I had always liked history and had read some books, but my
classes up to this point were the type of history class that make
people hate history; Endless memorizing of dates with no context or
sense of how any of this mattered in the present. Hinerman made it
come alive for me. He presented the material as stories... wonderful
stories of real people whose lives had changed the world. It was
presented as a narrative where you could follow the course of world
events and see the connections down to the present. He was funny and
serious and at times bordered on the profane, as much as he could in
a high school setting anyway.

But
the most important time spent with him had very little to do with any
formal class. Hinerman challenged me, not just with my art, but with
my perceptions of the world. He took a genuine interest in me and I
think was invested in opening up my world to things I might otherwise
never have been exposed to. He would question my opinions and ideas,
make me think about things more deeply. He fostered my curiosity and
introduced me to ideas I don't know that I would have encountered at
that time of my life without his influence. He got me interested in
politics, which played a pretty big role in my life for the first few
years after I graduated. I don't know whether to thank
him for this or not, because there have been many times in my adult
life when I have been so frustrated with the state of our national
politics that I wish I could just turn off my brain and allow myself
not to care. We debated issues of the day back then, and I am
absolutely sure we would stand on opposite sides of the aisle today.
I like to think we could still have fun with our debates.

There
was a back room in the art department where we kept supplies: paint,
paper, clay, all the accoutrements needed for an art class. No one
was allowed back there except Hinerman and the Advanced Art students.
It was where we would hide when we simply needed to be away from the
rest of the school day. I had lots of those early deep meaningful
conversations about life, the universe and everything with my friends
back there. A lot of my earliest fumblings with girls took place in
that back room.It was equipped with a hooded exhaust fan, ostensibly
for when we needed to paint something, or use spray paint or
fixative, to vent the room so we didn't die from the fumes. It mostly
served as a place for Hinerman to take a smoke break between classes.
He was at least a two pack a day man. Of course this was completely
against school policy. He never let students smoke back there, though I'm
sure some friends took advantage of this when he was away from the
room. He also never hesitated to light up in front of us.

Hinerman
was one of the first adults to treat me like a grown up, and at times
like a peer. One year he and another history teacher, Frank Hunter,
had the same prep period. They would get together in the art room to
just hang out and talk. A lot of it was history, but a lot of it was
simply life stuff. It coincided with a free period that I had, so I
was there with them most days. They included me in all of their
discussions. I feel confident saying I learned more valuable lessons
about real life in these sessions than in most other classes I've
ever had. He shared confidences with me about his family life, and in
time I went to his home and met his wife and children. At the time he
felt like a friend. From my position of advanced age now I know that
we weren't on equal footing in terms of what a friendship meant, but
I felt like I was more than just another student to him.

He
was something of a rebel, and perhaps the most important thing I
learned from him was to question authority. Not to openly rebel,
necessarily, but to question the very idea of where authority comes
from. Just because someone is in that position does not always mean
they are right. His teaching methods were somewhat unorthodox, and he
challenged the Principal and the rest of the school administration
constantly. I'm sure he was a thorn in their collective sides. I'm
sure because in spite of his tenure they were looking for ways to
fire him.

This
next part falls in the category of, “These are my memories of my experiences of events, and it has been a very long time, so the details are purely subjective.”

During
my senior year of high school it seemed Mr. Hinerman was under a lot
of extra stress. In a few conversations he confided with me that he
was on the defensive because he believed there was a concerted effort
on the part of the administration to fire him. I realize now that him
talking to me about this was probably inappropriate. This really
isn't the type of thing a teacher should share with a
student. At the time I took it as proof that he valued our friendship
and saw me as a peer. He told me a lot of what had transpired in
meetings with the administration, and that he had secured a lawyer.
He had been collecting his own documented evidence against his
accusers to use in case they ever attempted to fire him. Some of it
was pretty incriminating, and certainly was information I should not
have been privy to. My understanding at the time was that his lawyer
had already approached them with some of this information in an
effort to get them to back off.

Was
he paranoid? Maybe a little. But the tension between him and the
administration was obvious.

We
went on Christmas vacation and returned to school on January 2, 1979.
One of his gifts from his wife Bonnie was a history book called
Napoleon and Talleyrand: The Last Two Weeks. This was an era
of history I had taken an interest in at the time, and the figure of
Talleyrand would intrigue me for years. He was excited to share this
with me, and said I could borrow it when he was done.

Two
days later when I went to school I was informed by one of the
teachers that Will Hinerman had died of a massive heart attack early
that morning. He was just about to turn 42.

I'm
now over ten years older than he ever lived to be. I remember
thinking about him when I turned 42. It's still hard for me to
believe he was that young. He seemed older to me, certainly older
than I feel, or think I appear to the people in my life. I realize
that I saw him as an adult through the yes of an adolescent. We don't
have the perspective of age when we're young. But his mannerisms, his
way of living in the world, simply seemed older to me.

The
synchronicity I mentioned earlier that led me to finally write this
was that I commented on a friends picture on Facebook by quoting Mr.
Hinerman. She was one of his students as well, and remembered the
circumstances and we had a good laugh. I then remembered that he died in
January. A few moments of looking at old calendars on the internet
and I realized that the day I quoted him was the 35th
anniversary of his funeral.

To
say his death had a profound effect on me would be gross
understatement. I was devastated, and the next few days are a blur.
His wife asked me if I and some of his other students
would be his pallbearers. This was the first time I ever did this. He
was buried on a hillside in Cameron, West Virginia on a bitter cold
afternoon. The car of one of the school administrators got hung up
going up the steep driveway into the cemetery and he not only had to
walk, but he had to get towed. My friends and I, the other
pallbearers and I, found this a fitting revenge and chuckled in our
car at his misfortune, fully believing Hinerman had a hand in it.

At
some point during the previous few years we had organized the
Advanced Art Department into an officially recognized high school
club under the name Creative, Imaginative Arts, or the C.I.A. for
short. We had printed our own hall passes, signed by Hinerman, to use
anytime we were out of class and stopped by a hall monitor. They
read, “_______ is on a secret mission for the C.I.A. This note
serves as a hall pass.” He would always back us up, even if he had
no idea we had cut class. I carried one with me at all times. It got
to the point that the regular hall monitors no longer bothered to ask
me.

I
slipped one of these passes into the coffin.

That
day Bonnie gave me Napoleon and Talleyrand. It sits on a
bookshelf in my living room today.

The
rest of my senior year was completely colored by this event. I was in
serious grief. The rest of the members of the C.I.A. looked to me for
leadership. We had been pretty close before, but this bonded us even
more. Our fear was that we would be disbanded or no longer be allowed
to congregate in the art room. A substitute teacher came in for the
rest of the year, and we were all unfair to her and saw her as
nothing but a lackey for those we viewed as our enemies.

And
make no mistake, I viewed the principal and the rest of the
administration as my enemies at the time. I was full to the brim with
righteous indignation, grief and anger that I needed to direct
somewhere. I blamed them for his death. The stress they put on him
had caused the heart attack. I was sure of it, overlooking some of
the other obvious factors like the two to three pack a day cigarette
habit or congenital factors I may have known nothing about. But I
needed a target, and whatever respect I may have ever had for those
people simply vanished. Now, I was always a “good” kid who never
really got in any serious trouble. My grades were good and I was well
liked. That continued. I didn't act out in any overt way. Hinerman
had taught me better than that.

We
were the C.I.A. after all.

It
wasn't long before we began to hear rumors that our art club was
going to be shut down. The new sub didn't quite know what to do with
students coming to the art room off and on all day, even though we
continued to work on projects. I was determined to keep that room
sacred for us, at least as long as I was there. I asked for a meeting
with the principal to discuss the situation.

I
sat in his office, puffed up with myself and my anger. But I kept my
cool. He started the meeting by standing and looking out his window,
his back to me as he spoke. I felt like he was ashamed to face me. “I realize,” he said, “that you and
Mr. Hinerman were close, but I'm afraid he misled you about the
nature of our relationship.”

“I
know all about your relationship,” I said. And then I mentioned the
lawyers name and proceeded to list all if the things Hinerman had
documented about the principal's behavior. The look on his face is a
joy I will carry with me forever. I simply said that the C.I.A. would
continue until I graduated, then I got up and walked out of his
office.

Ah,
the amazing arrogance of youth. What a little fucker I was.

But
we never heard another word about being disbanded. I graduated 12th
or 13th in my class and moved on with the rest of my life.
The following year they hired a new permanent art teacher and while
there was still an Advanced Art option for high school students the
program I knew was gone.

I
spent a lot of time feeling like I had to live up to his expectations
of me. I came from a family where no one had ever gone to college
before (that's not a knock on my family, just the realities of the
time and place of the world we all lived in then). As much as I read
and was curious about the bigger world I really don't know if I would
have pursued the college option if not for Mr. Hinerman pushing me in
that direction. To be fair, there were others who did the same, but I
believe it started with him. I can't imagine what my life would be
now if not for his influence.

This is a watercolor Mr. Hinerman
painted. It hung in the art room. I took it
when I graduated and it has been on display
in every house or apartment I have lived in since.